THE WEEK OF VIP’S
Caption: Members of Mercer Island United Methodist Church and other SFNW crew members and Team Leaders yuk it up during a recent build.
YMSL
This weekend is our final weekend with the Young Men’s Service League. We will have an AM and PM shift on Saturday (9 am – 3 pm). Sunday’s times will be 9 am – 1 pm. (different from the usual Sunday 2-6 pm hours). Signup for this weekend will be for Team Leaders only: no crew members. WE NEED TEAM LEADERS FOR BOTH DAYS PLEASE! Team Leaders in Training work as well. Please sign up on SignUpGenius. Thanks so much for being a part of this weekend.
.
KING COUNTY COUNCILMEMBER PERRY VISITS THE HOPE FACTORY
Council Member Sarah Perry (second from the left) helped us tilt up a home this past Sunday. She is a fairly new member of King County Council, and she had a LOT of questions…and that’s a good thing! Glad to have you building with us Sarah!
(Face not shown for privacy.)
ANOTHER VIP VISIT
Today we had Mina, the Case Manager at Lake Union Village bring over a now former tiny home resident and brand new permanent home resident (!!) nicknamed Fozzie (in the Seahawks jacket) to talk about what the tiny home village experience was like for him: in his words “life changing”. He was so grateful for us and what we do. We were thrilled to have him in our midst.
.
OUR NEWEST COMMUNITY PARTNER: EPIPHANY SEATTLE
Epiphany Seattle has been building with us every month for about a year. This week we welcome them into our circle of Community Partners. Community Partners are those businesses, churches, or organizations that have sponsored four or more tiny homes. We are honored to hang your banner next to the other Community Partners on our “Wall of Fame”.
OTHER GREAT NEWS FROM TARGET
Jenn Carl, our point person from our friends at Target, told us this week that Target has just hired their first Team Member who was a former tiny home village resident now in permanent housing. Jenn said that they hope to hire many more current and former tiny home residents in the future. Way to go Target!
THE YEAR TO COME
This week we got a preliminary report from LIHI on the number of tiny home villages we will service in 2023. The next tiny home village will be in Ballard. This is a 25 home village. We will supply the homes, LIHI will build the village infrastructure, and Chief Seattle Club will supply the case management services. This will be the second First Nation Village.
The next tiny home village after that will be in Spanaway. This will be a larger village: around 65 homes. These two villages total around 90 homes, which will be taken from our storage lot that you have heard so much about.
After these two villages, LIHI has several more villages planned. More information to come as we get further details.
Bottom line is this: No matter what is in KCRHA’s Five Year Plan, we will continue to build tiny homes and the villages as long as they are needed.
DOWNTOWN SEATTLE PROGRESS
The Seattle Times recently ran an article on the progress of housing the homeless in downtown Seattle. This the essence of this article:
“Last February, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority raised $10 million in donations from private companies and foundations for a project called Partnership for Zero, with the idea that if the agency had success alleviating visible homelessness downtown, it could use the model across King County. The effort’s funders include Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft Philanthropies, billionaires Steve and Connie Ballmer and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”
Here are the results:
- Number of homeless people in downtown Seattle: 931
- Actual number of homeless persons from downtown who received permanent housing last year: 56
- Number of tiny homes $10 million would make: 2325
- Cost of 931 tiny homes: $4,003,300.
Here’s the link to the story:
ATTENTION GROUPS
We have now opened the Group Build calendar for June. (March, April, and May calendars are full). Groups of 10-12 people who wish to build in June can email Barb at SoundFoundationsNW@gmail.com Groups are scheduled on a first come, first served basis. We hope to be building with you in June!
A SPECIAL SHOUT OUT
…to Tom Lennon, this week’s unsung hero. Tom is in charge of purchasing all the construction materials for The Hope Factory. He just found out that the plywood used to make our interior walls is on sale at Lowe’s for $15 less per panel. So, we bought a bunch of them, saving us over $3000! That’s almost an entire home, just in the savings!! Tom, you rock!!!
THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HELPED THIS WEEK
- Our “regulars” who are the heart and soul of our organization.
- “New Crew” members: Liz, Shirley, and Peter
- Our wonderful groups: Rotary District 5030, Lake WA Sai Center, Sally and Friends, and Target
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
We hope to be building with you soon.
Your Leadership Team,
Beatrice, Tom, Bruce, David, Timothy and Barb